Oz Blog News Commentary

It’s Annastacia or Chaos!

January 28, 2015 - 19:50 -- Admin

The LNP posted the ad above on Youtube 6 days ago. Strictly speaking it doesn’t make sense, since a “just vote one” for the government will have no impact on the exhaustion of preferences. But, as William Bowe observed in Crikey, obviously they’re trying to reach beyond their base and plant the idea in non-LNP voters’ minds. Good luck with that.

It’s been a bit of a surprise to me that the Premier’s potential loss of his own seat hasn’t made more of an impact on the campaign so far. Campbell Newman is very unpopular, but I can’t see a squabble between Tim Nicholls, Lawrence Springborg and who knows who else for the top job being either a choice Queenslanders would like to see, or an edifying way to embark on a new term.

The LNP may have played on Newman’s “outsider” status when he was anointed as Opposition Leader without a seat in Parliament, but the failure of any number of superannuated MPs to stand aside for him is now backfiring. While Newman’s “Strong Plan” for Ashgrove is a bigger porkbarrel than any of the others, the combination of his unpopularity, the LNP’s attacks on public servants and the environment and disdain for civil liberties and Kate Jones’ local record are all clearly posing the governing party huge problems in Ashgrove.
ReachTEL’s poll of the Premier’s electorate, released tonight, has the race swinging towards Jones. She’s now at 54% of the 2PP vote to Newman’s 46.

It’s fair to conclude that the choice for “stability” now is the ALP. Isn’t the choice now Annastacia Palaszczuk or Chaos?